With the two-headed monster of climate change and a depressed economy staring millions in the face, much attention has been turned toward mass public transit. Local governments are clamoring for larger state and federal investments in bus systems...and train systems.
The town where I grew up -- Kansas City, MO -- once boasted of one of the best streetcar systems in the nation. There was over 300 miles of track that supported streetcars, trolleys and one subway. But in the 1950s, during the Eisenhower push for more highways, Kansas City turned its back on this wonderful form of mass transit and the last streetcar finished its run during the year I was born, 1957.
A few trolleys continued to run after that time because I vaguely remember catching one a few times at the Waldo station during the late 60s. But soon the trolleys too were dead and so the tracks lay vacant.
Eventually, a lot of the tracks were torn up and the rail beds were converted into walking/biking trails. The trains themselves were shipped to other cities or simply destroyed. In essence, a once thriving infrastructure was reduced to nothing.
There are some people in Kansas City (lots of other cities too) who believe that one answer to the city's transportation woes would be an intercity train system! So, work has begun to investigate the feasibility. It's a fairly easy guess -- in today's bleak economic times -- that such grand ideas will prove to be far too expensive to implement.
Had people not been so short-sighted, the basic infrastructure would still exist today and all it would have needed was some modernizing. As indicated above, tracks used to crisscross the city connecting north to south and east to west.
Hopefully, painful lessons such as this will teach us something. When looking forward, don't get so caught up in the new vision or technology that you end up throwing away something that is valuable. Sometimes, the best way to look forward is to look backward first.
The town where I grew up -- Kansas City, MO -- once boasted of one of the best streetcar systems in the nation. There was over 300 miles of track that supported streetcars, trolleys and one subway. But in the 1950s, during the Eisenhower push for more highways, Kansas City turned its back on this wonderful form of mass transit and the last streetcar finished its run during the year I was born, 1957.
A few trolleys continued to run after that time because I vaguely remember catching one a few times at the Waldo station during the late 60s. But soon the trolleys too were dead and so the tracks lay vacant.
Eventually, a lot of the tracks were torn up and the rail beds were converted into walking/biking trails. The trains themselves were shipped to other cities or simply destroyed. In essence, a once thriving infrastructure was reduced to nothing.
There are some people in Kansas City (lots of other cities too) who believe that one answer to the city's transportation woes would be an intercity train system! So, work has begun to investigate the feasibility. It's a fairly easy guess -- in today's bleak economic times -- that such grand ideas will prove to be far too expensive to implement.
Had people not been so short-sighted, the basic infrastructure would still exist today and all it would have needed was some modernizing. As indicated above, tracks used to crisscross the city connecting north to south and east to west.
Hopefully, painful lessons such as this will teach us something. When looking forward, don't get so caught up in the new vision or technology that you end up throwing away something that is valuable. Sometimes, the best way to look forward is to look backward first.
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